Killer Pad

Now, I will admit—freely admit!—that I had mixed feelings when I slipped a copy of “Killer Pad” into my DVD player. More on that in a minute—-first, we’ve got to talk plot.

Three idiots are dumb enough to move into a house at 666 Perdition Lane, sold to them by Bobby Lee in drag. Despite the unheeded warnings of a friendly Mexican continually shrieking about “el diablo”—which the idiots mistake for references to hot sauce—they move into the house, which they later discover is a portal to hell.

Now, about my mixed feelings—I was confused. For some strange reason, they brought in bizarre man-child Andy Milonakis to handle some starring duties. As an occasional watcher of his self-titled MTV show who is regularly baffled by why this little asshole even has a show to begin with, why they would expect him to actually, you know, act is beyond me. The little peahead surely has better things to do with his time, and all of them make even less sense to rational thinking people than his show does.

I was horrified. Stamped right across the top of the box in big white letters on a field of red was the ghastly phrase: “From a Producer of Dude, Where’s My Car?” This horrifies me. They WANTED to call attention to this. They wanted to connect this to “Dude, Where’s My Car?” If you don’t remember that one, the best thing about it was Ashton Kutcher. And that’s like saying “The BEST part of my trip to Somalia was the dysentery.”

And then, just when my hope as at its lowest…a bright light out of nowhere. Four very simple words you’ve already read: “Directed By Robert Englund.” Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund himself. The man has not done a bad movie yet. He was even good in that Mangler sequel, and that had no business being good!

Of course…when there are bona fide shit jokes in the first minute…my hope just boils off into a giant cloud that smells vaguely like burning plastic. But then along comes Bobby Lee in drag…that’s never not funny!

Which is the scariest thing about “Killer Pad”—it’s a riot. An almost continual riot. It’s self-referential, it’s full of jokes, it even knows when it’s being stupid and will go so far as to make fun of itself. It’s the funniest horror movie I’ve loved since “Idle Hands,” and clearly, Robert Englund was the guy to handle it!

The ending manages to show that, somehow, the power of KISS will save the world. Which makes absolutely no sense, but it’s funny, so I’ll go with it.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, audio options, a making-of featurette and trailers for “Killer Pad,” “Highlander: The Source,” “Catacombs,” “When Evil Calls,” “The Legend of Butch and Sundance,” and an advertisement for Fearnet.com.

All in all, this…this was just a riot. This was a laugh beyond anything I’ve seen lately, and that’s good enough.

Steve Anderson is a film critic who collects action figures so he can dress them up as his favorite horror villains. He lives somewhere in the United States.